Fast-to-the-fork pork

This quick meal is ideal for families

I might have mentioned this before: I’m a slow cook. This has nothing to do with slow cookers or slow cooking or the Slow Food movement. It has to do with not being speedy.

In part, I’m slow in the kitchen because I enjoy the process of cooking and I get caught up in it. And, in part, I think it’s because I never had to be fast. Everyone I cook for can wait; there’s no maitre d’ in my house hurrying diners along, no runner bringing more order tickets into the kitchen. That means I cook for the yum factor.

But then there are those serendipitous recipes in which yum and quick meet. This is one of them.

When I sent the recipe to Mary, my longtime tester, I called it “quick-cooking.” When it came back to me, those words had been replaced by “lightning fast,” which is only a slight exaggeration. Even I can get this to the table in under 20 minutes. Someone with kids clamoring for dinner can probably top my personal best time.

Because the dish is based on pork tenderloin, it starts off with an advantage. The tenderloin is a quick-cooking cut that, when sauteed, as it is here, should be kept over heat for only a few minutes. Because the meat is cut into two-bite morsels, its total cooking time is even faster than usual.

But speed is a convenience; taste is the reason to make this dish. The pork gets three layers of flavor: a spice rub that includes chili powder, ginger, cumin and curry powder; a saucy gloss of honey and apple cider vinegar; and two spoonfuls of Dijon mustard. Quickly mixed in the pan, these ingredients coat the meat and create a sauce that’s good straight or drizzled over what’s next to it on the plate. My favorite go-along is a spicy salad with arugula and mustard greens, maybe some tatsoi, too, tossed with a little oil and lemon juice and spooned onto each plate as a bed for the pork and sauce.